New Haven Independent

posted by: Charlie on July 21, 2010  5:07pm

Ms. Hauser is embarrassing herself.  “I had a lot to learn…I’m spending what I need to get my message out.”  Why is she running if she doesn’t know what she’s doing?  What message is she getting out?  ...  Is she going to hire more help when she gets to Hartford?  Come on.  Roland knows what he’s doing and he’s getting out his message the right way.  This race has become a no brain-er.

posted by: Ben on July 21, 2010  6:00pm

Really starting to feel more and more negative about Deb Hauser. Seemed liked she was a noble opponent going into the race.

posted by: Morris Cove Mom on July 21, 2010  6:15pm

Seems like Lemar applied for the grants, then hoped he wouldn’t get them, as it would have meant that Hauser spent more, which seems to go against the kind of grass-roots campaigning he is trying to do.

Seems like Hauser is willing to spend the well dry, and keep going, even though she is suffering personally, financially, and in the press.

I wish I could understand why she is making the choices she is making.  Surely nothing could be more important than taking care of your own issues first.  She should have dropped out of the race quite a while ago, and maybe ran again after figuring everything out.

posted by: robn on July 21, 2010  7:00pm

Question: Why are tax dollars given to candidates?
Answer: To deincentivize the purchase of elections by wealthy candidates or their backers.

Question: Why didn’t public financing stop Debra Hauser from paying 25K of her own money into her campaign?
Answer: Because the law was facing legal challenges and she might have strategized that matching public financing would be rendered illegal during this campaign.

Question: Where did Debra Hauser get 25K of her own money to pay into her campaign if her husband was in bankruptcy and her house was in foreclosure?
Answer: Foreclosure is a long legal process which allows people to delay property payments and possibly restructure their mortgage agreement with their bank. Bankruptcy is a long legal process which allows people to delay paying their creditors and allows a judge to either cancel debt or to reset debt to some payable (usually lower) amount.

posted by: Real Funny on July 21, 2010  8:54pm

If Lemar doesn’t think his $6,500 is a good thing, “he shouldn’t have applied for it,” Hauser said.

LOL…You go girl.

posted by: An EastRocker on July 21, 2010  9:27pm

This may help others, as it has helped me, to understand Ms. Hauser’s words and actions.  Quoting from the famous Gatsby:
“The rich are different from you and me.”

posted by: Doyens on July 22, 2010  12:29am

Poor Roland. His campaign has come down to hanging his hat on spending the public’s money on a campaign that will benefit ... HIM! If Lemar is wringing his hands over getting a supplemental grant, then by golly, don’t apply for it. It’s pretty simple and it’s disingenuous to claim he’s being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do.

Once again, the campaign discussion is all about something that doesn’t matter, that doesn’t win us a better representative, that doesn’t come up with any bold ideas on job creation/retention; over-taxation, spending problems, a declining bond rating and a complete mess in terms of fiscal policy in Hartford. No, we’re going to make a big deal out of where the quarters come from to fund a campaign that doesn’t talk about the issues. Terrific.

Maybe voters should consider this a major issue and vote for the person who raises and writes the checks to fuel her own ambition and doesn’t count on taxpayers to bail out a campaign who expects us to pay for his ambitions and would otherwise have no money.

posted by: MM on July 22, 2010  7:00am

...

I should be glad there is competition and choice. I’m not. This election is a choice between two pigs in pokes. Please, Someone nail them down on where they stand on taxes, education, the economy and crime, and how they would tackle todays problems. I’ve had enough of the petty back biting of their supporters. I guess the Liebermanesque tactics that permeate Connecticut politics today deter the able and intelligent from ever running for office. Or will it take Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich as President to get the Democratic Party in New Haven to wake up.

posted by: Stop speaking now on July 22, 2010  7:00am

Ms. Hauser, who proudly talked about her role in starting and leading a small business, now talks about that role as “her husbands failed business”.  Her Husbands bankruptcy and failure caused her foreclosure - why didn’t she put some of this cash into helping her family business succeed instead of writing campaign checks to every one she knows.

I liked Ms. Hauser, right up until she started throwing her husband under the bus ...  I don’t really care about campaign finance reform, but I do care about a candidate like Ms. hauser and all the things she has said during this process.

She shouldn’t be running right now.

posted by: robn on July 22, 2010  8:23am

Question: Does entering into bankruptcy mean that you have no money?
Answer: Entering into bankruptcy doesn’t mean that you have no money, it means that you don’t want to give money you have to people you owe.

posted by: robn on July 22, 2010  9:04am

DOYENS,

Why stop there? Why not take some tips from Tammany Hall, skip the election and just sell the legislative seat to the person with the most money?

posted by: Hauser Supporter on July 22, 2010  10:44am

WHO CARES ABOUT HOW THEY PAY

seriously people, you are paying for Lemar’s “Clean” (re: Citizens’) election with your taxes.  How can you prefer to have your taxes allocated without your permission to a machine stooge’s campaign than have someone run with their own money?

Rich? how is Debra Hauser rich? she is upper middle class. A clinical psychologist in New Haven makes around 100k, lets say plus or minus 20k.  That income plus her husband’s is enough to cover the cost of the election.  By spending frugally, it’s easy to understand how they can afford 25k.  It is not insubstantial for them, it’s a significant portion of their annual income. However, the fact is that if you have enough school, you are compensated accordingly.  She is a working person with a professional career…not rich.

Lemar has no right to complain about Hauser spending her own money while he spends yours…  He is not engaging in a clean campaign, and there is NO SUCH THING AS “CLEAN ELECTIONS PROGRAM” it is a deceitful and disingenuous ploy to distract from the important issues in a race-WHICH ARE THE ISSUES (not the finances).

In all the “Hauser is rich” whining by the Lemar camp, people are forgetting that:
A. people make money by being intelligent, educated and good with money
B. Lemar is using this to distract you from the fact that:
-Hauser has substantive policy proposals
-she is a more qualified candidate (educated, experienced, not a puppet)
-Lemar’s voting record reveals him to be a hypocrite
-Lemar is the machine candidate, and in any city with machine politics, corruption abounds.  The only way to counter this corruption is to stand up to the machine.
-Hauser’s loyalty is to issues of social justice, while Lemar’s loyalty is to Destefano. Hauser is willing to pay her own money to put herself in a better place to act on her conscience.  Lemar is willing to spend your money to put himself in a place of power where he can act on Destefano’s whims.

I realize that what Lemar says sounds good, if you do not analyze it. But I ask you to employ your rational faculties and read what Lemar says looking for content. Then read what Hauser says, looking for content, and tell me who you would prefer to have the modicum of power that they are so ardently vying for.

Finally, Hauser needed to hire consultants because she is new to politics.  Lemar has Destefano’s machine behind him, and they know how to be sufficiently generic and spout platitudes with mass-appeal.  Not wanting to engage in this sort of chicanery, Hauser has employed people who know how to package the substantive skills she has to offer in digestible amounts of information.

posted by: Not a Hauser Supporter on July 22, 2010  12:31pm

Hauser Supporter,

...

Let’s be honest:

Ms. Hauser, not Lemar, is chair of DeStefano’s PAC that’s currently under investigation for skirting campaign finance law. (sound like a trend?)

DEBRA HAUSER HAS KNOWN JOHN DESTEFANO, RAISED MONEY FOR HIM, AND WORKED ON HIS BEHALF. Please stop tossing around this silly rhetoric about Lemar being a puppet or having the “machine” behind him. Insofar as a machine actually exists.

...You ESPECIALLY shouldn’t call him a puppet when your candidate says she had to hire people to write her policy positions because she “needed to learn.” Maybe she should take some of the 25k and buy a couple of books, or just NOT run for office. She’s nothing but a puppet for anyone whom she can pay to tell her what to say. Maybe her heart’s in the right place, but we don’t just elect officials in this country because they have good intentions.

She’s like the new Linda McMahon of New Haven. God help us all.

posted by: Anika Singh Lemar on July 22, 2010  12:33pm

Hauser [Supporter]:

People may start taking you seriously when you’re willing to put your name to your positions.  It’s easy to call someone a hypocrite and puppet.  Well done.  You’re qualified to be a bully in third grade classroom.  Qualified to be a State Representative . . .  we’ll see.

posted by: robn on July 22, 2010  12:41pm

I CARE HOW THEY PAY

I disagree with the conservative majority of the Supreme Court who ruled that money(campaign spending)=free speech. They’re wrong. In fact, I would go so far as to say that money can purchase such a great volume of speech (advertisement…print, radio, TV) as to drown out poorer opponents. Therefore money is the antithesis of free speech.

Public financing takes away the incentive for unsavory campaign donors who wish to buy an election (elections today are won with media saturation) and also frees candidates from constantly being concerned about fund raising when they should be focusing on their job. Its a great equalizer.

Yes its expensive, but corruption is more expensive.

posted by: Hauser Supporter on July 22, 2010  1:44pm

1.Yes, she is a chair of the PAC.  This is simply because she has been involved peripherally in New Haven politics, and eager to do whatever she could. When he asked her to be on the PAC, she agreed.  What the PAC is under investigation for is entirely unrelated to her
2.she needed to learn how to play the politics game, not what the issues at hand were.  To people who aren’t being held up by Destefano strings, it is not obvious how you make your message heard.
3.How is 25k even remotely comparable to 50 million dollars? Do people listen to themselves? ... Even as a Hauser supporter, I would never stoop so low as to compare Lemar with someone so repugnant as McMahon.
4.Why is my name relevant?  ...  The content of what I say is all that matters.  Judge for yourself whether it is true, whether I am Stephen Hawkings, Oprah Winfrey, or Rush Limbaugh…
5.Robn: Yes and no.  To the extent that someone fabulously wealthy can dwarf the efforts of a normal citizen, yes: balances are needed. I believe that CEP is a misguided effort at this.  However, people need to recognize that this is not the case here.  Hauser has no “unsavory donors” (which I read to be lobbyists and special interest groups).  Her contributors are all friends, family or unaffiliated supporters.  This is a race with so little at stake and such small sums of money being spent anyway that the accusation that Debra is buying the campaign is ludicrous. Rather, she is spending her hard earned money to keep up with a machine candidate.  Lemar is an alderman who always votes with Destefano. Dig a little, prove me wrong.  If you find one counter example, you will have already seen the dozens of supporting votes that prove me right.  Given that, he need only rely on the machine architecture that is already in place.  There is unequivocally a machine.  New Haven is a textbook example of machine politics.

posted by: Still not a Hauser Supporter on July 22, 2010  2:05pm

Hauser Supporter:

Being a ward co-chair and chair of the mayor’s PAC is about as entrenched as one can be in politics. ..

And it’s very easy to have your message heard without being involved by DeStefano: knock on doors and have conversations about the issues. No one person in this city has a monopoly on running campaigns. The best ones aren’t that hard to plan. Or that expensive to buy.

And finally, please stop trashing Lemar for participating in a program that your candidate says she supports. If she doesn’t support it, she should stop lying, and at least abide by its principles. If she actually doesn’t like the program, she should just admit that, and then we can have a conversation on the issue. The problem is when she talks out of both sides of her mouth. ...

posted by: Anika Singh Lemar on July 22, 2010  2:59pm

I am so tired of this old refrain that Roland is a puppet.  Saying it does not make it so.  Just off the top of my head:

(1) 311 and the inadequacy of the City’s system
(2) Recycling
(3) Whitney Avenue re-do
(4) Executive pay raises
(5) A walking beat on State Street
(6) Marshals

More details on Roland’s role in most of these issues is at http://www.rolandlemar.com.  Click on news.

It matters that you post under a pseudoynm because it means you have no accountability for what you say.  It also suggests that you’re embarrassed to support your candidate.  Or that you are the candidate.

posted by: jayj on July 22, 2010  4:22pm

Let’s go Roland, let’s go (clap clap)
Let’s go Roldan, let’s go (clap clap)

Roland all the way baby !!!!!!!!

posted by: pukleo on July 22, 2010  4:50pm

Roland is machine also, just a bit farther left of the baby carriage of desteff. he took Facade money from the gaggle down at East Rock and the Community Management funds.
Rollie never saw a check or envelope he didn’t want to cuddle with , returning developers money never crossed his hind

posted by: robn on July 22, 2010  5:20pm

HS,

Although i do find it amusing, I’m not sure how we turned from campaign finance to the who-hates-the-mayor-the-most game. But since you mentioned it…both candidates have a cordial working relationship with the mayor. However, only one candidate is (somewhat falsely) framing her candidacy as an outsider. (That would be Ms. Hauser)

posted by: Credit Game on July 23, 2010  6:59am

Anika:

You forgot that Roland made the sun come up this morning (except on the cloudy days as he is against that, except when we need the rain as he is for that, but not acid rain, he is against that, except when it creates jobs as he is for that), created the water that flows through our pipes (not the brown stuff, he is against that), supported the creation of the air we breath. . . All drafted by candlelight at your dining room table with Norman Rockwell’s ghost in the corner painting the portrait.

It is amazing that we managed these many years with his insight and direct action, except when the opposite action is required and then he is for that too . . .

posted by: FIX THE SCHOOLS on July 23, 2010  7:20am

Getting back to the important issues….

According to their respective websites, one candidate’s education plan is incomprehensible while the other panders to the powerful but harmful-to-children CEA.

Is there anyone else out there?

posted by: Anika Singh Lemar on July 24, 2010  2:28pm

@ Credit Game:

Look back at my comment.  I simply responded to Hauser [Supporter] with a list of issues on which Roland had taken a stand against the current administration, no more, no less. 
...

posted by: abg on July 28, 2010  11:43am

Shame on anyone who casts a ballot in this race without watching the June 3 televised debate between Lemar, Hauser and John Morrison on CTV.